


when the world comes crashing down

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M, Post-Starcrushed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10024250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: He didn't even get to say goodbye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I literally haven't been this motivated by a piece of fiction in _ages._  
>  This is my first real foray into Star vs the Forces of Evil fic, too, although Star and Marco's alt universe counterparts once cameo-ed in a Twin Trade fic.  
> Enjoy!

Marco didn’t want to go back downstairs.

He could hear people talking again; he could even hear the music. For some reason, the world kept moving even though the universe was falling apart. Star Butterfly was _gone_ and there was a party going on downstairs!

Star was gone.

But it wasn’t like when she abandoned him with what’s-his-name the songwriter, he’d known the whole time that she would eventually come back.

Star was _gone_. Star was gone and her things were gone and her _room_ was gone and she wasn’t coming back this time.

And she had a crush on him. And she said it in front of everyone. _Everyone_. And he – he hadn’t – how hadn’t he _known?_

Star was his best friend. His best friend! And he didn’t even know! Or – no. No, he did know. He just didn’t want to know. He was happy with Jackie, with himself with Jackie, and he didn’t want to know that his best friend had a crush on him because that would change everything that would _ruin_ everything because how are you supposed to process that? Like, you finally figure out how to get the thing you’ve wanted for literally years and then the entire universe is like “hey no, what about this awesome thing?” and you’re thrown for a loop and isn’t that just the fucking story of Marco’s –

“Marco?”

He looked up, snapped out of his thoughts. “Wha – oh. Hey, Jackie.”

Jackie slid down the wall to sit next to him on the hallway floor. “So that was a thing.”

“Yeah,” said Marco, his head dropping back onto his knees.

“Are you okay?” she asks, putting a hand on his back between his shoulder blades.

“She’s gone, Jackie,” Marco said dully. “She’s just – everything’s gone.”

“Oh, Marco,” said Jackie. She didn’t say anything else; just rubbed his back silently while he tried not to cry. She didn’t ask what this meant for them (he didn’t know), she didn’t ask where Star went (he didn’t know), or what he was going to do now (he didn’t know).

Jackie had to go home eventually – curfew. She kissed his head and said, “Sorry,” in a low voice as she left.

“Yeah,” Marco replied. He looked up as she reached the top of the stairs. “Jackie?”

“Yeah, Marco?”

“Thanks.”

Jackie smiled weakly. “Of course.”

A while after that, Marco dragged himself to his room. He thought briefly about going and wallowing in his confused grief in Star’s room, but it wasn’t Star’s room anymore and he couldn’t even imagine it was if he tried. Better just to lay on his own bed and try not to notice the unmistakable marks his best friend had left there. He couldn’t really not notice, though.

Marco sprawled on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. From here, he could see the best friends photo collage Star made for the end of the school year taped on the wall; he could see the misshapen “vase” they’d made on that weird pottery field trip together after Star’s spontaneously combusted; he could hear the clicky scurrying of the puppies’ little feet on the wood floor in the hall; he could smell the faint sweet-but-charred smell he associated with Star in the pillows and blankets; he could feel the little hole she’d made picking at the loose bits of his knit blanket under his fingertips. Her whole bedroom and all of the things inside it might be gone, but she couldn’t erase herself from here.

That was nice, grounding. Sure, she’d dropped off the face of the earth – literally – but she had been here and she had been _real_ and all of the amazing things that they’d done together had been real too. And they’d mattered. They mattered to him, anyway.

And if Star – well, he figured they must have mattered to her too.

Marco was absently grateful that Jackie hadn’t said anything direct about Star’s confession. He wouldn’t have known what to say to her – he barely knew what to say to himself ( _she was hiding it from you on purpose, she didn’t_ want _you to know_ ). He supposed that it was probably positively significant that he was managing to think of Jackie at all, when the vast majority of his brain was screaming _STAR._

He didn’t think he had any feelings – no, that’s not right. He didn’t think he had any _romantic_ feelings for Star. But he’d never thought about it.

That’s not right either.

He remembered, vaguely, being struck by how pretty Star was when they first met. And she was so _cool_ and dangerous and it was dizzying. But that had been a passing thought, brushed aside almost immediately, and they became friends, really good friends. And she pushed him out of his comfort zone, pulled him to places they probably should never have gone, nudged him towards Jackie.

When did she realize she had a – a _crush_ on him? How long had she been keeping this under wraps? Had she been pushing him towards his childhood crush while choking down feelings of her own to make him happy?

Marco pushed himself up. “Why didn’t you just _tell me_?” he mumbled.

 _“I couldn’t,”_ he imagined her replying. He pictured Star sitting across from him, cross-legged with their knees touching. They’d spent plenty of evenings sitting like that with their homework on their laps between them; the image came to him easily.

“Why, Star?” he asked.

“ _Marco_ ,” imaginary-Star said, pained. “ _You’re my best friend.”_

“And you’re mine,” said Marco.

“ _It would have been weird_ ,” insisted imaginary-Star.

“I should have known.”

“ _I didn’t tell you_.”

Marco’s eyes were stinging; his vision of the room getting blurry, and pressure building in his sinuses. “Why did you leave?”

Imaginary-Star frowned. _“I didn’t want to.”_

“Why did you tell me?”

“ _I couldn’t leave without you knowing.”_

Marco’s arms were crossed, his fingernails digging into his skin on his upper arms. He felt tears rolling down his cheeks. “Star – “

 _“I’m going to miss you, Marco,_ ” imaginary-Star said, her voice shaking.

“Star,” Marco repeated, suddenly completely out of words.

He blinked and she was gone, and try as he might he couldn’t make the vision of her come back. He pulled his knees to his chest and fell over sideways onto his pillow. He couldn’t help it, he was sobbing now. Just sobbing like a little kid.

He felt like the world had been turned inside out.

Star was gone.

Marco was probably never going to see her again and he didn’t even say goodbye. He didn’t tell her he’d miss her, or that his life would be nine million times more boring without her in it; he didn’t tell her how much she meant to him, or how much better off he was, how much happier, for having met her. He didn’t tell her anything.

He’d just choked.

And instead of telling her all of the things he should have said, the things he always thought he’d say if he ever had to say goodbye to her, Marco just watched her leave. When he’d finally snapped out of it, it was too late to catch her. To tell her _anything._

To say goodbye.

He took a long, shaky breath and opened his eyes.

His gaze fell on a side table, with a pair of scissors in the back of its drawer.


End file.
